Because being healthy should be fun.

Boy, do I love Country Music

A little known (OK, widely known) fact about me is that I am truly, unwaveringly, borderline-psychotically devoted to country music.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s summer and I feel like it’s time to mention it again seeing as summer really means “concert season” at my house. Donnie and I are just a wee bit obsessed with spending all of our discretionary income on tickets. All of it, you guys.

Side note: I started a Google doc spreadsheet a while back to start obsessively monitoring my spending because grad school is friggin’ expensive, and I literally have a line item called “Discretionary” with a note next to it that says “concerts and other”. Obsessed.

I think the grand total of country concerts we attended last year was 11. I’d have to go back and confirm FOR SURE, but I’m sure you’ll take my word for it, right?

This year has been a bit slower on the concert front because we opted out of the Country Mega Ticket (6 shows over the summer) since we saw most of the artists last year…so that was pretty responsible. But we did see Kenny Chesney IN Nashville, which was killllller.

So this past weekend was the inaugural Windy City LakeShake at Northerly Island. 3 days. 2 stages. Many, many hours of music. Fun fact for the non-Chicagoans: Northerly Island is located right next to Soldier Field/Museum Campus and used to be a small airport called Miegs Field. And now it’s a concert venue!

I mean, it’s not ugly, amiright?

(No filter! xoxo)

The first night Dierks Bentley was the headliner. This was my fourth time seeing him perform (yeah, I know. ALL MY MONEY, you guys), and he was just as good as the last time. I’m so glad that he’s finally headlining.

PLUS, he had some special guests show up at the end of the show with a VERY special surprise.

I meeeeannn. I got to see the Cup twice in one week? Pretty unreal. Now I just need to see it up-close so that I can get my picture with it. (Life goals)

Brad Paisley got rained out on Saturday, but he’s just the best and agreed to stay on last-minute to close the fest on Sunday night. Such a class-act, that one. Of course that also meant that I was up far later than my bedtime (which is an embarrassingly early 9:30pm on weeknights), but it was totally worth it.

Here’s a tip from me to you: if you’re at an all-weekend music festival, just go ahead and order yourself a pizza the size of your body on your way home the first night. You’re going to need it and you’ll be happy for the leftovers.

This was after night two (when we got rained out), hence the really awesome hair.

And there you have it! First concert festival of the year under my belt, and I lived to tell about it. Yeeeeehaw!